


On the Jeralls

by nostalgic_breton_girl



Category: Elder Scrolls, Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
Genre: Bruma, F/F, jerall mountains
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-07
Updated: 2020-06-07
Packaged: 2021-03-04 07:28:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24589843
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nostalgic_breton_girl/pseuds/nostalgic_breton_girl
Summary: In which I leave the comforts of the Imperial City for Bruma and the Jeralls, and am most profoundly inspired by their majesty.
Relationships: Original Imperial Character/Original Nord Character
Kudos: 4





	On the Jeralls

There is, it seems, a widespread philosophy in Bruma concerning the mountains. Bruma, say most people that one asks, is in the perfect place, with regards to the mountains: we are in the foothills, a little above the other cities, and thus we see further, we see wider; but we are not quite in the mountains, we are entirely dominated by the higher summits, and thus is our confidence tempered, thus do we recognise our place in the world. – Such thoughtful ideas surprised me, in a city full of Nords, and I rather suspected that it was less a philosophy, and more an ill-disguised justification of the local sentiment of superiority.

But Bruma, it is very much true, has the most magnificent view down towards Rumare, and up to the towering Jerall peaks: and one cannot help but marvel at both. And if nothing else, the residents of Bruma have a right more than most to refer to their local peaks as _mountains_.

Everybody in Cyrodiil thinks they know what the Jeralls are like. They are the backdrop of so many paintings – tamed mountains, in oils, capped in glistening white and cascading into green flower-speckled meadows; they are the backdrop of so many stories – their capricious valleys the setting for great adventures, their varied denizens the subject of daring exploits. I do not think any of us thinks of the Jeralls as hostile, as empty: yet it is here I must give credit to our Bruma friends, who are quite right, when they claim that they are put in their place by these mountains.

There are two or three ways across the mountains from Bruma, but only one is mentioned to the obvious amateur, and even then not especially recommended. This is the famed Pale Pass – famed, you will no doubt recall, for its recent involvement in an adventure, when the Countess of Bruma determined to find the Draconian Madstone among the ruins within the pass. Pale Pass was the last stand of the Akaviri against the Cyrodiilic forces, a place which resonates with historical significance, and I was as eager to discover it as I was the mountains themselves.

‘I should take a guide,’ said my innkeeper of the evening, one of those true ruddy-faced Nords one hardly sees any further south. ‘It’s a difficult place to find, for a newcomer, and more difficult to navigate.’

‘Where might I find a guide?’

‘Oh! look around,’ said he: ‘there are mercenaries about, and folk who know the area. Probably even some of the scouts who went on the Countess’s little jolly.’

The inn filled up over the course of the evening, and by the end of it I had found my guide, a Nord wanderer named Jenette, who though rather on the taciturn side seemed as if she knew what she was doing. I hoped she would forgive my Imperial inclination to conversation, and announced my intention to set out the following day.

And so we awoke early, and breakfasted in the Jerall View Inn, where I had spent the night – the irony of this inn being that none of its windows look upon the mountains, and all of its bedrooms are underground, as is the fashion in Bruma (though not, I am told, in Skyrim). It was with exceeding haste, then, that I ventured outside, and looked up to the mountains that would shortly receive me.

We of the Imperial City have quite the self-centred view of the world. Our walls are far taller than one might see over, unless one has the fortune of being in the outfit of the White-Gold Tower: and it is this selfsame Tower which rises far above us, more our superior even than the Emperor. The City surrounds and dominates us, that we are ever reminded of sheer mortal power. But in Bruma it is quite the reversal, one is quickly humbled by the mountains, and how they dwarf the city. And the city walls, the castle are not small, and the chapel-spire is among our tallest!

We took the north-east road, which led gradually upwards, and which almost disappeared in the morning fog. While the mountains were still relatively obscured, I took the opportunity to inflict my conversation upon my companion.

‘Have you often been to Pale Pass?’ said I.

‘Many times,’ said she.

‘I understand you were with the scouts, when they found the Madstone.’

‘Yes...’

‘That was a most interesting expedition. I almost wish I had been there, though I fear I should have been rather in the way.’ Her expression was telling, and I grinned. ‘There are ruins up there, correct? of the old forts, from Reman Cyrodiil’s time?’

‘Yes.’

The mists were beginning to lift from the mountains, but not from my friend’s demeanour, and I decided to leave her to her ponderings for a little. – A little became a lot; more than an hour had passed, when at last we came to a corner in the trail, and a rock formation in the snow.

‘Dragonclaw Rock,’ said she: ‘this is where we leave the road. Have your wits about you, there are creatures in these parts.’

‘What sort of creatures?’ I asked: but she had already sprung westwards.

What little I had garnered from chatter in the inn turned my thoughts to wolves and bears: I was, then, rightly astonished when at length I perceived a much bigger form at a distance, and when Jenette caught my arm and pulled me aside, behind a succession of rocks.

‘Ogre,’ she said.

‘Ogre!’ said I: and she put a cold gauntleted finger to my lips.

It was a hideous thing, like a grotesque giant of a man, all swelling flesh and grasping fat hands. I have never seen anything quite like it, I have hardly even heard ogres described. – Perhaps, I worried, because nobody has survived to describe them. – Oh! had it seen us, would it attack us?

‘Jenette...’ I murmured.

Her hand had not even gone to her bow, she had her full attention on the thing, and her hands were still upon my forearms, keeping me in place. As we watched, the thing clomped closer, then turned, and, with footsteps that resounded in the ground beneath us, made its way downhill, towards the rock formation which we had seen.

I had hardly even had time to react; I let out a pent-up breath that I did not recall taking, felt my mind turn a little to chaos. Jenette looked askance at me, and though she said nothing, I saw the concern in her eyes.

‘I... I’m fine,’ said I: ‘are there many ogres, on this trail?’

‘It depends,’ she replied.

‘Depends on what?’

‘Depends on the season. They move north for summer, through the pass. It’s rare to see them round here, this late in spring.’

I did not know if that was reassuring or not, but she had abandoned all attempt at hiding, at least, and set out once more on our journey. We walked now against a grey cliff-face, one that hid the mountains entirely; there were snowdrifts against it, and there was snow on the ground, and in the white were footsteps rather bigger than I might have liked. But I said nothing: for one thing, there was something about Jenette’s presence that allayed the greater part of my fears. – Nothing quite like a good stocky Nord to defend you, in the northern realms!

The path cleared a little, and opened onto a small wooded plateau: and Jenette stopped, smiled, indicated a shape among the trees.

‘The Sentinel,’ she said: ‘we are nearly there.’

It was a statue of a soldier, carved fairly roughly, but with distinctly unusual armour which I supposed to be Akaviri. Certainly it merited the title, from its size and stature alone.

‘North of here is the Serpent’s Trail,’ she went on: ‘that will take us to the Pass.’

I looked about for the pass, for a place where the mountains might be cloven, that we might go through; but I saw only their overbearing cliffs, and a scattered forest. Certainly I did not know what Jenette was looking for, if anything. I trusted her judgement, however, and went after her; and when we came by a small jagged entrance in the rock face, closed by a wooden door, as is the fashion in Cyrodiil, I thought I understood.

‘Is the pass underneath the mountains, then?’

She shook her head. ‘But one must go through darkness first.’

I do not know if she meant it to sound so philosophical as it had; leastways, I hadn’t much time to think on it, for she had opened the door, and scrambled through.

‘Don’t suppose you brought a torch?’ said I, on realising that I could not even see the size of the passage, it was so dark. My shoulder scraped against an incline in the rock, Jenette seemed to chuckle to herself.

‘I had had you figured for a mage.’

‘What? – Oh! I _am_ –’

I fumbled a bit, and at length cast a shimmering ball of light before us. The tunnel was rather narrower than I expected, and its walls were glistening, for the air was damp. I thought I smelled something unpleasant; my suspicions were confirmed, when Jenette commented, laconically:

‘The ogres spend the winter in here. I hope they have moved on.’

‘I hope they have, too,’ I murmured, and summoned a little magical energy towards my palms, that I might ready a destruction-spell if necessary. Jenette went quickly, and not attempting to cover the sound of her footsteps, and with some reluctance I decided I ought to trust her apparent judgement. – If the air smelled of ogres, it was faintly, and the passage was silent. We seemed to be safe, for now.

‘There is a whole mountain on top of us,’ I hazarded at length, in a whisper. ‘How do you suppose this passage came to be? – Was it carved by human hand? – Or mer.’

I directed my light onto the walls, tried to decide if they were regular enough, if they resembled the work of the builders back home.

‘Obviously there are natural caverns everywhere,’ I went on, ‘but this pass seems most convenient. Perhaps the diggers elaborated on an existing cave network.’

Whatever should be the answer, I decided I was rather fascinated by the place, and by the thought that we were _within_ the Jeralls. Those extraordinary mountains, not just standing over us, but encasing us! Never have I felt so swallowed up by the forces of Nature, so intimately imprisoned. Before, I had considered Nature to be glorious for her liberty; now, I considered her tyrannical, and yet strangely more alluring for it...

When I have thought on it since, I have tried to rationalise it; at the time, I thought perhaps the stale cave-air was getting to me. It could not be long, surely, until we emerged. Much as I appreciated this bizarre intimacy with the mountains, I rather hoped to see their exteriors soon, to see the true pass which I had aimed for.

And I did not have to wait long: soon Jenette bounded ahead, towards a little slatted light, and turned back to me with a smile.

‘No ogres, then,’ she said: ‘and this is the pass.’

She made to open the door; I readied myself. – The mountains, the true mountains! I had felt an incline upwards, as we had walked through this cave: I supposed that we were quite high up now, really among the great peaks, that we had reached the vista I so wanted to see. I readied myself, that I might prepare to be astounded, and dominated, that I might be confronted with a real tempering of my self-confidence, as it were. – Anyway, Jenette led me outside, into the fresh air, and I blinked in the sunlight, before looking all about me, as a woman in sheer awe.

We had emerged a little above a capricious valley, at the shadow of a path which led down to a carpet of snow, a smattering of shrubs, and, I thought, the remnants of the fabled fortresses; beneath us had the Akaviri stood, and the Cyrodiil forces, there had the fate of our land been sealed: but that, but that was quite insignificant, a humble mortal action, now all but invisible, when compared with the Jeralls themselves... Oh! to see the peaks beyond Bruma is one thing – a little distant from the city; to see them here, directly above us, is quite another.

Cold-hearted giants, which would dwarf even the most fearsome of legendary creatures, which watched the world, and did nothing, and stood unchanging; divine giants, almost, a reminder that we are minuscule, that we are nought... That I was entirely humbled, perhaps came from my absorption of the Bruma philosophy, and the sense that I had taken it on more readily even than the stoutest Nord. When one is an Imperial, from the City, as I have noted, one can quite easily believe that our race and fellows have tamed the land: but Cyrodiil is surrounded by mountains, and the mountains are unpopulated, we are an Empire hardly without limits, but we have not managed to dominate the mountains, they yet rule over us.

I must have shown my every sensation upon my face, for Jenette looked at me in something akin to amusement, before walking a few steps more, and settling upon a rock, to look over the valley, and perhaps meditate. After a moment, I joined her. – I so wanted to express my thoughts aloud, but I dared not disturb her, once she had retreated into her own enjoyment of the view.

It was the Dwemer who first thought to build within the mountains: and it was the Dwemer, as we all know, who were obliterated by their own ambitions. – Perhaps I would go to the Valus Mountains one day, and see their attempts, those immense ruins which had nevertheless been swallowed up by the devouring mountains. – No, mountains were a sign not to become cocky, a sign to temper one’s self-confidence: for once, the Nords could not have been more correct.

I was not quite myself, for a good while: I lost myself so in my contemplation, that I felt myself soar above the view, like the lazy eagle drawing circles far above us. I envied its flight, envied its quiet, its solitude – not because I had not attained the same, from my position, but because I would not enjoy such a state for ever, because I must return to civilisation, and human hubris.

At last Jenette stirred at my side, and judged my state, before saying, unexpectedly:

‘Quite the view, isn’t it?’

‘It’s the most magnificent I have seen,’ said I.

‘All-Maker be praised,’ she murmured: and at my questioning glance, to my surprise, she reddened, and tried to pretend she had said nothing.

‘Thank you for bringing me here,’ I said: ‘I am most grateful. I think I have been very much put in my place. – One day I think I should like to walk the whole pass, to Skyrim...’

‘That is a whole other mountain to overcome,’ Jenette said. ‘But if you wish me to lead you, you have only to ask for me, in Bruma.’

I smiled, looked out once more over the valley. ‘I think I’ll stay a little while longer here: go have a gander at the ruins. Do you want to come down, or...’

‘I had better.’

We went down the path together, then, and spent a good while walking among the remains of the fortifications which had once separated Cyrodiil from its neighbours: fortifications which had all but disappeared, which had only ever been superficial. No! if there was anything which could survive the ravages of time, and of everything else, it could only be the forces of nature, it could only be mountains: they had seen the forts put up, and falling down, and they had seen us come and go, and they would see so much, in our future, and far beyond...

The Jerall Mountains, then! – if you should ever have the chance to see them truly, then I promise you, it is well worth the experience. – I returned to the City almost a different person, I think: more contemplative, more distant even, like the mountains, but as befits my tiny mortal self, I knew my place in the world, and respected it. I wavered, in my consideration of the Bruma philosophy: I wanted to mock it, to call it a hypocritical justification of some entirely different sentiment – but I think they are right, I think the mountains give them a perspective that we in our City cannot truly embrace – and that, perhaps against all expectation, our northern cousins are in that the most fortunate and enlightened of all of us.

**Author's Note:**

> I don't really know what I was aiming for, here. A travelogue, perhaps? - Anyway, it's a thing. - Do let me know what you think. - I did not intend for Jenette to have that much of a character, it just sort of happened, and I might work a little more on her, if I get the chance.


End file.
